JULY 4, 1862:
On Independence Day, 1862, the editor
of The New York Times foresaw a
bright future for the country:
“The National Natal Day
Through the thick gloom of the present I see
the brightness of the future as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a
glorious and immortal day. When we are in our graves our children will honor
it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivities, with bonfires,
with illuminations. On its annual return they will shed tears, not of
subjection and Slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of
gratitude and of joy.’
Thus exclaimed the
patriot seer, JOHN ADAMS, on the adoption of the Declaration, July 4,
eighty-six years ago. We could have no better motto for to-day. He saluted it,
by the ‘All hail hereafter!’ as the birthday of the Republic. We celebrate it
now in the new birth and regeneration of that Republic. Now, as then, indeed,
‘thick gloom’ hangs over our country, but the eye of faith can descry the ‘brightness
of the future as the sun in heaven.’ To-day, we celebrate it not merely by the
‘festivities, bonfires and illuminations’ whereof he speaks, but by the awful
baptism of fire and blood. We have, indeed, our wonted festivities; but the
real celebration to-day is along the line of battle, and where the Union hosts
surround the beleaguered armies of the cursed rebellion. There are our hearts
and hopes. The rest is all but show. And we ‘have that within that passeth
show.’ God defend and prosper the armies of the Republic!”
The Richmond Daily
Dispatch mocked the Union’s premature expectations of victory, and wondered
aloud why they bothered celebrating Independence Day anyway, “having sacrificed all the principles which
it was designed to commemorate.”
“The Fourth of July.
The Yankee Congress,
a week or two ago, objected to adjourning, because McClellan would probably be
in Richmond by the Fourth of July, and they wished to be in readiness to enact
any legislation which that event might require. They are a grand people for dramatic
effects. On the last Fourth of July there was to have been, according to the
orders of that magnificent ass, Abraham Lincoln, and a flaming programme in the
New York Herald, a general, combined, simultaneous march of the universal
Yankee columns, East and West, upon the strongholds of the Southern Rebellion,
which were to be chewed up and exterminated without farther delay. But the
North was not able to celebrate its Fourth of July in this manner, and the
South put off its celebration till the Twenty-first! It will hardly be able to
celebrate its next Fourth in Richmond. What it wants to celebrate it for at
all, having sacrificed all the principles which it was designed to commemorate,
is beyond our comprehension.”
No comments:
Post a Comment